Introduction

Textbooks are one of the most common teaching resources in the classroom as well as very important instructional aids in the teaching arsenal of any professor.
These books offer students detailed knowledge, credible in-depth information, facts, concepts and principles and help them organize their learning.

Even though popular 21st century technologies such as TV, computers, smartphones and other new media channels are rivaling printed materials of communication, it’s difficult to imagine a world without traditional paper textbooks, since they still play a vital role at the heart of the mainstream educational process in schools and colleges.

As a result, students that don’t have their textbook by the first day of class and wait until weeks into the semester to search and purchase a copy, are putting themselves at grave risk of facing difficulties in learning the material, lagging behind their classmates and may even end up completely failing the course.

Cost

Knowledge doesn’t come cheap and the constant rise in the cost of higher education course materials put a significant financial burden on students, their parents and their bank accounts.
Every year, many freshman college students are shocked to discover that tuition is not the only absurdly high school expense they need to successfully cope with.

Academic book publishers frequently claim that creating modern textbooks with highly specialized educational material is an expensive, lengthy, labor-intensive process which incurs massive production costs that require charging high prices.
In addition, they argue that the relatively low volume of published books and the need to constantly keep them up-to-date are also powerful factors that drive prices up.

However, many students feel that this industry is using unethical and unfair tactics that undermine the used-book market and often force them to buy new editions each year without any real justification, rather than purchase (or rent) used copies.

Some publishers bundle their titles with other materials such as CD-ROMS, study guides and online resources and the added costs are built in to the cost of the book.

Most students feel trapped due to the fact that their study materials are grossly overpriced, which translates to rapidly increasing their overall debt.
Under such pressuring circumstances, in which students essentially represent a form of captive market that is obligated to buy whatever textbooks professors assign for their classes, many of them are actively looking for better and more cost-effective alternatives to the traditional campus bookstore.

What Do Textbook Websites Offer?

Online retailers offer a broad variety of physical as well as electronic titles (eTextbooks) with a large selection of different book versions and editions to choose from.
As back-to-school season sets in, students can use these sites to buy, sell and rent the titles they need.

Users can easily search and find titles by topical category / subject, ISBN, book title or author’s name.
While some college bookstores sell new books only, others offer used ones and downloadable digital versions as well.

In a painful financial reality where textbooks are outrageously expensive, students all over the country use the power of the internet and comparison shopping in order to get the best prices as well as the lowest shipping costs for their purchase.

Indeed, the key players in the online marketplace offer their customers highly competitive pricing and substantial discounts on their college textbooks, compared to regular retail prices that can normally be found in local brick-and-mortar campus bookstores.

In addition, many of the major merchants in this market offer attractive features such as best price guarantees, express delivery options, a customer-friendly return policy with quick refund options, buyback programs, flexible rental plans as well as other meaningful benefits.

The following list includes examples to some of the common textbook subjects that are taught in schools, universities and other higher education institutions in the U.S. and can be found in any typical college bookstore on the web:

• Accounting
• Agriculture
• Algebra
• Anthropology
• Architecture
• Art History
• Astronomy
• Biology
• Business, Investing & Finance
• Business Management
• Calculus
• Chemistry
• Computer Science & Technology
• Criminal Justice
• Design
• Economics
• Education & Reference
• Engineering
• Foreign Languages
• Geography
• Geometry
• History
• Law
• Literature
• Marketing
• Medicine & Health Sciences
• Mathematics
• Music
• Nursing
• Philosophy
• Physics
• Photography
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Reference
• Religion & Spirituality
• Science
• Social Science
• Sociology
• Test Preparation
• Trigonometry

Paying for Textbooks with PayPal

Many popular college textbook ecommerce sites in the market accept PayPal and take a variety of other payment methods such as credit cards, debit cards, wire transfers, gift cards and more.